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Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 25, 2014

Pity Moscow's foodies as Putin's sanctions bite

A food writer in Moscow finds President Vladimir Putin's annoying at the best of times, but this month her distaste has blossomed into unbridled loathing after Russia imposed sanctions on food imports from the U.S., EU, Canada and Japan.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 25, 2014

Arming yourself with the legal system's greatest weapon

For American lawyers accustomed to struggling with massive walls of law books and expensive database services, one of the great things about Japanese law is that it is so compact and accessible.
LIFE / Language / WELL SAID
Aug 25, 2014

ii-yo!

Today, we will introduce the meanings and usage of the adjective u3044u3044 (good).
WORLD
Aug 25, 2014

China's state media says teen masterminded slaying of pro-Beijing imam in Xinjiang

Chinese police have concluded that an 18-year-old, who was influenced by religious extremism, was the mastermind behind the murder of a state-backed imam in China's western Xinjiang region, state media said on Monday.
Japan Times
WORLD
Aug 25, 2014

Strong quake rocks California wine country, injuring dozens

A 6.0 magnitude earthquake rocked wine country north of San Francisco early on Sunday, injuring more than 100 people, damaging historic buildings, setting some homes on fire and causing power outages around the picturesque town of Napa.
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Aug 24, 2014

Brazil denies Japan World Grand Prix title

Brazil retained its title with a three-set (25-15, 25-18, 27-25) victory over Japan on the final day of play in the FIVB World Grand Prix Finals at Ariake Colosseum on Sunday night.
Japan Times
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 24, 2014

Tire-makers race to turn dandelions into rubber

Dutch biologist Ingrid van der Meer often meets with disbelief when she talks about her work on dandelions and how it could secure the future of road transport.
JAPAN / Media / MEDIA MIX
Aug 23, 2014

Criminal notoriety for the sake of fame

Hirofumi Watanabe, the man convicted Thursday of threatening publishers, stores, universities and basically anyone or anything that had something to do with the popular manga "Kuroko no Basuke (Kuroko's Basketball)," has enjoyed a peculiar sort of celebrity since he was arrested in December. Prior to...
COMMENTARY / Japan / COUNTERPOINT
Aug 23, 2014

Bear attack: Up close and way too personal

On Aug. 14, I was attacked by a black bear. It all happened suddenly and in a blur of fur, paws and gnashing teeth as the tsukiwaguma charged out of the trees 10 meters from me in a forested, hilly area in Gunma Prefecture in the Kamimoku district of Minakami.
Japan Times
LIFE / Digital
Aug 23, 2014

Yoshimoto Kogyo's role in creating a real-life robot with a sense of humor

With big, round, smiling eyes and a shirt and bow tie displayed on the screen on his chest, humanoid robot Pepper is ready to entertain his guests. Music begins to play, and Pepper shows off his moves to the 1960s hit song "The Loco-Motion" as a crowd of onlookers laughs with pleasure.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 23, 2014

Wena Poon on life and death in occupied Kyoto

As a child living in a tiny apartment in Singapore, Wena Poon listened to radio plays broadcast in a variety of languages and watched TV — everything from Chinese sword-fighting operas to popular American series such as "M*A*S*H." "There was nowhere to go outside," Poon says, "so I just sat around....
Japan Times
MORE SPORTS
Aug 23, 2014

Takada aiming for NFL career

Playing in the NFL is the ultimate dream of every kid who plays football. The majority, however, never get to see that dream come true.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Aug 22, 2014

Put Japan's casinos where they're most needed

Japan would do better to steer gargantuan casino projects to regions that really need them — like economically depressed Okinawa or Tohoku, the northeast region that still hasn't recovered from the March 2011 earthquake.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 22, 2014

Can the Chinese help save Africa's elephants?

Over the last two years, restaurants in Shanghai have dropped shark fin from their menus amid an awareness campaign against the shark-fin trade. Could a similar campaign curb the Chinese public's demand for ivory and help to save Africa's elephants?
WORLD / Science & Health
Aug 22, 2014

Researchers reverse autism symptoms in mice by paring extra synapses

Although many things have gone wrong in the autistic brain, scientists have recently been focusing on one of the most glaring: a surplus of connections, or synapses.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Politics / ANALYSIS
Aug 22, 2014

Polarizing Abe learns the long game

Shinzo Abe is one of Japan's most polarizing prime ministers in decades. He may also have a good shot at becoming that rarity in Japanese politics — a long-serving leader.
Japan Times
WORLD / ANALYSIS
Aug 22, 2014

NATO's new challenge: 'ambiguous warfare'

Since Russia's annexation of Crimea in March, NATO has been publicly refocusing on its old Cold War foe, Moscow. The threats it now believes it faces, however, are distinctly different from those of the latter half of the 20th century.
BASKETBALL / BJ-LEAGUE NOTEBOOK
Aug 21, 2014

Grouses remain in transition as preseason looms

Less than two weeks before the league's preseason schedule tips off, the Toyama Grouses roster doesn't resemble the one that soared to great heights last season.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 21, 2014

Bereft of sense, government does what it can

Washington's response to the menace of school bake sales illustrates progressivism's ratchet: The federal government subsidizes school lunches, so it must control the lunches' contents, which validates regulation of what it calls 'competitive foods,' such as vending machine snacks.
Japan Times
Events / Events Outside Tokyo
Aug 21, 2014

Ogaki Mini Maker Faire, a great place to make stuff up

Who says you have to be a professional to be an inventor? The Ogaki Mini Maker Faire 2014 this weekend in Gifu Prefecture brings together all manner of people to share their unique ideas — from craftsmen, artists and developers to absolutely anyone who likes electronics and gadgets.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Society
Aug 20, 2014

Single fathers emerge from the shadows

Hiroki Yoshida, a father of three children aged 6, 8 and 11, suddenly became a single father four years ago, when his wife walked out without warning.
WORLD
Aug 20, 2014

Scene of fighting, grandiose Mosul Dam always beset with problems, threat of collapse

The Mosul Dam was always meant to be a symbol of Iraq's grandiose ambition to escape poverty and underdevelopment.
Japan Times
OLYMPICS / SPORTS SCOPE
Aug 19, 2014

Critics of Tokyo 2020 venues misguided

The Tokyo 2020 Olympics are still almost six years away, but in many ways the games have already begun.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Music
Aug 19, 2014

Musician Rory Viner turns Japan's suicide statistics into a song

Train delays due to jinshin jiko, which euphemistically translates to "human accident" — often a suicide on the tracks — are far from an infrequent occurrence in Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE / Food & Drink / JAPANESE KITCHEN
Aug 19, 2014

Japan's historic love of corn

The fact that corn or maize has a Japanese name — tōmorokoshi — indicates that it entered the country centuries ago, before it was the norm to import the name of a food as-is and spell it out phonetically (as with tomatoes or asparagus, for instance).
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 19, 2014

U.K. should stay in EU until they beg it to leave

The European Union moves under a seemingly irresistible momentum to strengthen its institutions even as it fails to integrate in ways that a well-run single-currency area needs. The best course for Britain is to continue as an EU member for the economic benefits until other members beg it to leave.
WORLD
Aug 19, 2014

Ukraine accuses rebels of deadly attack on refugees in convoy bearing white flags

Dozens of people, including women and children, were killed as they fled fighting in eastern Ukraine on Monday when their convoy of buses came under rocket fire, a Ukrainian government military spokesmen said.

Longform

Koichi Tagawa’s diary entry from Aug. 9, 1945, describes the day of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki.
The horrors of Nagasaki, in first person